Monday, May 30, 2011

As Tears Go By

Thank you, my brothers and sisters in uniform, thank you. Thank you for your valour, bravery, thank you for having the guts to get out there, thank you for doing all you could to protect us. Thank you!

Thank you for waking up before dawn, for trudging mile after mile, for carrying heavy packs and for putting yourselves in the line of fire. Thank you for stepping into trains, trucks, onto boats, into planes, for being willing to be separated from your family and loved ones in order to serve. Thank you.

I don't blame you and I don't begrudge you, nope. I respect you and I honor you today and every day. What is remembered, lives.

8 comments:

May we also remember on this day—as we did traditionally when this was called "Decoration Day" prior to its militarization—others who fought and died for peace and freedom, though not in the military: Gandhi, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Paul Wellstone.

i sat with a man nearly seven months ago - an english man - who had fought his way across europe in the second world war. like so many men and women, he was incapable of expressing the depths of his suffering. as a good person drawn into the inexpressible difficulties of war and its concomittant sorrows, it was something he wished had never happened and yet he was able to share his pride in preparing a world that he had helped create. at one point in our conversation he asked me; "how do you like this?". "sorry, how do i like what?!" i replied. "the world" he replied. "well, i like it very much but it could use some work don't you think?!" we both laughed and shared something of how to understand war. steven